Former DA John Conte forced to sit and speak

Tuesday

Jul 15, 2014 at 6:00 AMJul 15, 2014 at 6:04 AM

By Dianne Williamson

Boo Radley spoke.

And spoke some more.

Like a spectre from some long-ago, quieter time, former District Attorney John J. Conte re-appeared at the courthouse Monday, looking like the same law enforcement phantom who always vanished at the mere sight of a reporter. But seven years after he retired, there he was, right out in public like a regular human, gabbing away as a witness in a civil case

In fact, you could hardly shut the guy up.

"Let me finish," he more than once told Assistant Attorney General Helene Kazanjian, who was gently forced to interrupt a witness clearly not accustomed to being interrupted.

When I heard that the man I once dubbed Boo Radley because he never came out, was testifying Monday in a civil case, I hightailed it to Room 19, fascinated by the idea that Conte would have to sit and answer actual questions rather than run. I was also eager to see what he looked like when not surrounded by a cadre of armed and burly state troopers, retained mainly to glare menacingly at reporters during press conferences, which is why Conte enjoyed a virtual question-free reign for three decades.

The retired DA was testifying in the case of a former police officer who believes he's entitled to the $100,000 reward offered in the case of Molly Bish, the 16-year-old who disappeared from her lifeguard post in Warren on June 27, 2000. Timothy S. McGuigan of West Brookfield led investigators to a remnant of Molly's bathing suit on Whiskey Hill in Palmer in 2003, which led police to the missing teen's remains.

Both Conte and his successor, District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr., refused to pay him the reward, maintaining that it was intended for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Molly's killer. No one has ever been charged with her death.

Conte, now 84, explained Monday he was a busy DA.

"We had an overload of work and the district attorney's office couldn't concentrate on just one case, because of the breadth of the mandate handed to us by the state of Massachusetts," was how he put it.

Ah, memories. On the rare occasions that the reclusive DA did speak, he tended to ramble on with the sort of officious, self-serving generalities favored by politicians. Conte was a state senator before he became a DA, but he never managed to pull off a pol's easy banter with the public. Rather, he was like the Richard Nixon of district attorneys.

He stressed that posters offering a reward "for information leading to Molly" were distributed by the Polly Klaas Foundation and not authorized by his office. He recounted the day in 2003 when Molly's bones were found as "one of the most agonizing things I had ever done as a district attorney." He also remembered breaking the news to Molly's mother.

"I did one of the most difficult things I ever did as a district attorney," he said. "I had to tell Molly's mother that this was her daughter."

At another time, he explained his media policy. "I refused daily all of the TV shows, all of the media," he boasted. "That was a daily occurrence with me."

That was an understatement. But the civil case isn't about Conte, even though at times it seemed to be. Rather, it's about McGuigan, a man who testified that the reward money was "an afterthought," even though he's persisted for years in trying to collect it.

"It seemed to me it was way out of bounds," Conte said of McGuigan's efforts. "Looking for money for law enforcement work, it didn't sit well with me."

This week, 12 jurors will decide whether it sits right with them. But regardless of the verdict, the trial accomplished the near-impossible: It finally got John Conte to sit still.